Eli Lilly to cut 8% of workforce in cost-cutting effort

Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) said today that it plans to shed 3,500 positions globally as it works to cut costs.

The drugmaker estimates that the move will result in yearly savings of about $500 million, starting next year.

Lilly said most of the cuts will come from a voluntary early-retirement program that it is offering the U.S., but it is also shuttering a plant in Iowa and R&D offices in New Jersey and China.

“We have an abundance of opportunities—eight medicines launched in the past four years and the potential for two more by the end of next year,” chairman & CEO David Ricks said in prepared remarks. “To fully realize these opportunities and invest in the next generation of new medicines, we are taking action to streamline our organization and reduce our fixed costs around the world.”

“The actions we are announcing today will result in a leaner, more nimble global organization and will accelerate progress towards our long-term goals of growing revenue, expanding operating margins and sustaining the flow of life-changing medicines from our pipeline.”

The company has had an array of setbacks this year, including what will likely add up to a multi-year delay for its investigational rheumatoid arthritis drug, baricitinib. The FDA declined to approve that drug and has asked the company to conduct an additional clinical trial.

That decision came on the heels of Lilly’s experimental Alzheimer’s treatment failing in a clinical trial. The company had hoped that it would prove to be the first drug approved to slow progression of the neurological disease.